Weekly round-up and open thread

Welcome to another weekly round-up, where we share (what we see as) the most interesting and important articles from the previous seven days. We’d love to hear your thoughts on any of the issues covered in the articles we’ve picked.

As always, linking to articles does not mean endorsement from the F-Word and certain links may be triggering. We welcome debate in the comments section and on Facebook/Twitter but remind readers that any comments containing sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic or disablist language will be deleted immediately.

If you notice that we’ve missed out any important articles from the past week, feel free to let us know.

From the article: “Ms Roberts, from Newcastle-Upon-Tyne had tweeted the DVLA account, writing: ‘Just received my new licence and it is wrong. I asked for no title on but it has come back with one on it. Can this be changed?’

The DVLA twitter account responded: ‘Hi, the purpose of the title is to allow the system to determine the male or female format of the driver number. I’m afraid it can’t be removed.’”

From the article: “Thanking people for their efforts — from the person who posts a daily list of action items for you to follow to the volunteers who help your organisation function — means a lot, and can help people feel more engaged and committed to a mutual effort of interest or concern. It’s unreasonable to expect people to commit to unpaid labour without any kind of acknowledgment of their work, almost as though ignoring their very existence and focusing on their product will allow you to dodge the question of whether they should be paid. To the contrary, it just makes people feel prickly, unpleasant, and used.”

From the article: “You want to make the world a better place. This I know. This is why I love you. But in this pursuit of ‘better’, maybe you should consider how you treat the patients you claim to care for.”

From the article: “I believe that the dehumanization of disabled people stems, at least in part, from fear. There is, of course, the fear of what is different from oneself as well as the fear of the other. Yet, I think the biggest fear that contributes to our dehumanization is the fear of mortality. Disabled people are walking (or rolling or however you get around) reminders that our bodies can and will break down and that one day we will all die. People with mental illness or I/DD are reminders that our minds are fragile things that can break down and that one day we may be left as shells of our former selves due to diseases like Alzheimer’s or dementia. We are feared because we remind people that they are not invincible. They see our “broken” bodies and minds and they are reminded that one day they too will have their bodies fail them, that they too may have their minds become foreign.”

From the article: “Disablism, in other words, is what leads to sympathetic treatment in the media of parents who murder their own disabled children, because of course, they were too heavy a burden to care for. And ableism is what leads to Applied Behavioral Analysis (ABA) – which forces autistic children mimic neorotypical people (often through electric shock and withholding food) – to be considered “therapy” rather than torture. Like the filling and bread of a sandwich, the two ideas are not exactly the same, but neither can they exist in isolation.”

From the article: “While the show raises timely questions about intersectional feminism, female representation, and gender inequalities—all urgent themes in Trump’s America—perhaps most pertinent is the show’s insistence on reminding us that black women have long faced the perils of a world in which their voices are silenced.”

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